


What's in a Nickname?

by sharlatanka



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Everyday people and the Inquisition, Gen, Self-hating Dalish elf finds blank slate in the Inquisition, Tevinter Inquisitor series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-10 21:55:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12921030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharlatanka/pseuds/sharlatanka
Summary: Armanshah delivers a Hart from his Dalish clan to Skyhold.  Little does his clan know that he doesn't plan on returning.  The first in a series of stories on the transformative power of the Breach and the Inquisition on the lives of individuals and their struggles with identity, headed by my Tevinter Inquisitor.





	What's in a Nickname?

He tugged forcefully on the reigns of the hart— the Tirashan Swiftwind, as ornery as it was smart.  It had refused to be ridden about a mile from the fortress.   Armanshah preferred them stupid.    
  
The young elf lurched ever more forward towards the main gate, glaring at the stupefied faces of the gatekeepers who weren’t sure what to make of the sight in between feeling the veins in his temples pulsate from the strain.  He could tell what they must have been thinking.  _Don’t the Dalish have a natural way with animals?_ Still, Armanshah refused help with the beast when he finally reached the gate, and explained that he had been sent from his clan to deliver the purchased animal.  That, he huffed laboriously, pushing forward again, was exactly what he was going to do.    
  
“Hey,” Armanshah heard one gatekeeper ask the other, with a chuckle in his throat, after he had passed, “aren’t the Dalish supposed to… talk to animals, or something?”  
  
“Heh.”  The other one answered.  “Guess the trip was long.  Maybe they ain’t on speaking terms.”  
  
For the first time, such a crack didn’t send Armanshah into a rage.  Once he had crossed that threshold into Skyhold, he didn’t have to be a Dalish elf anymore.  Because he wasn’t planning on going back.    
  
His locking the hart into the stable and receiving an extra payment of a small bag of coin for his trouble represented the final severing of his ties to his old clan.  He brushed the dust and hart spittle from his thick black hair, shaved on the sides, loose on the top and its longest end gathered into a short braid at the back of his neck.  He happily breathed in the air of skyhold: horse shit, sweat, wet metal, and smoke.  He was free.  
  
Armanshah hated clan living.  The cold nights and exposed summers, sanctimonious deprivation in exchange for some old legends that never sated children’s bellies, the desperation for tradition, coming of age and marriage rites.  He refused to starve and be saddled to a girl for the rest of his life and go on and produce children who would also starve.  To him, being Dalish was playing pretend that there was any way to go back to the way it was before… however it was.    
  
The clan was wary about corresponding with a force headed up by an Inquisitor from the Imperium, but as expected the letter was a bunch of drivel about the richness of the history of the ancient elves and the threat of the Breach to that memory.  And as expected, the keeper ate it up.  So Armanshah had volunteered— quite unlike his usual self— to make the journey to Skyhold alone.  There was no point to his life if the rest of it was going to be arbitrarily decided by the keeper, and the boy he had been sweet on over the past few years had married a girl and refused to speak to him.  Armanshah was a young man— something he was sure the Inquisition needed.  For what, he couldn’t have been sure, which was part of the excitement.    
  
So he stood there at the stables in his ratty travel clothes, with a bag of coin in one palm, and the other empty and yet, full of possibilities.  And he decided that before he went to work putting himself to good use, or put himself to good use going to work (whatever they needed), he’d get himself a drink.    
  
He made his way through the bustle of people speaking in all sorts of languages with the lightest, most unburdened of steps, and finally took a seat in the tavern, mercifully less crowded.  Where he came from there wasn’t much of a tavern culture— it just wouldn’t fit into a land caravel.  As the barkeep approached, he became more and more nervous about that fact.    
  
Just before he could open his suddenly extremely cottony mouth and have just a mug of tea, please, another voice intercessed on his behalf, almost as if coming from above.    
  
“A mead for this one— and my usual for me.”    
  
The voice was coming from above, but only from about ceiling height.  Armanshah looked up and nearly jumped at the sight of the person who had come to his aid.    
  
The voice laughed, deep and yet still light.  “Lemme guess what it is that has you gawking: never seen a Qunari before? No, wait! It’s the eyepatch.”  
  
Another raspy voice called out from a corner of the tavern.  “It’s your _tits_ , chief!!”  
  
The qunari burst into another round of laughter.  “Whatever it is, take a drink, that’ll get you over it.”  
  
The barkeep slid Armanshah a chilled metal mug.  He took a drink, and swallowed with difficulty.  His new drinking partner took a seat next to him.  “You can call me The Iron Bull.”  
  
“Okay.”  He gulped, feeling at that moment more foreign than ever.  Almost forgetting, he offered his own name with a stutter.  “Armanshah.”  
  
“Say,” The Iron Bull wagged a finger in the elf’s direction. “What’s that face tattoo mean?”    
  
Armanshah scowled slightly into his mug.  “It means fuck all and your mother’s arse.”  It was actually the symbol of June— the least known elven god.  The one with the most potential for a sense of self-determination.  
  
The Iron Bull chuckled.  “All right, all right. I was only asking because I’m always thinking of getting another of my own. That hurt?”  
  
Yes. “No.”    
  
“That’s the right attitude!”  He slapped the smaller figure on the back.  “I’m guessing you’re new here.”  
  
“...Maybe.”    
  
“Got plans?”  
  
His shoulders, rigid from nerves and pride, finally slouched pitifully.  “No… not yet, not really.”  
  
“Can you fight?”  
  
“Yes… uh… sword.  I don’t have a shield.”  
  
The qunari rubbed the stubble on his own face thoughtfully.  “Say there was an open spot for you…. and say we could spot you a shield.  Say there was some money in it.”  
  
Armanshah perked up in his seat.  “Really…? I… I’d be interested.  Do I have to fight someone, pass a test or…?”  
  
“Nah.”  The Iron Bull waved a hand dismissively.  “Your life is in your own hands.  You die, you weren’t cut out for it.”    
  
“Should I ask someone for an official Inquisition uniform?”  
  
“We’re mercenaries, kid.”  He gestured towards a small crowd of jovial, mismatched soldiers.  “Best in the business.  And if you are too, we’ll know soon enough.  C’mon, might as well meet them all.  Follow me.”  He stood, and Armanshah followed him towards a new seat around a new family.    
  
“Say— you’re Dalish, aren’t you?”  
  
He tensed up and responded tersely.  “Yes.”    
  
“Well, we already got a ‘Dalish.’  So we’ll have to find you a new nickname, once we figure out who you really are.”  


End file.
